Sermons

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I’ve always been interested in language, as those of you who’ve been subjected to my little Greek and Latin lessons over the years will know all too well. In my undergraduate work I focused a great deal on the philosophy of language, and my thesis was on the subject of the metaphysical nature of proper nouns, so if you’re really a glutton for punishment, I could dig out a copy of that paper for you. I suppose this interest probably stems from a desire to understand and be understood in a more general sense, which is a human impulse I suspect most of us share. Our inability to do so has led to all manner of suffering, which is probably why the author of our Old Testament lesson from Genesis, the story of the Tower of Babel, was keen on trying to explain how sin led to the confusion of tongues–the beginning of a vicious cycle of misunderstanding.

How appropriate, then, that the miracle of the first Pentecost was the Holy Spirit’s provision of understanding. “And they were amazed and wondered, saying, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?’”

Note well, that this was not just a miracle to show the power of God, though this was a secondary benefit. The primary concern (if I might be so bold as to speculate regarding the intentions of God) was with the communication of salutary knowledge. You might not have noticed that, because our lesson concludes after Peter’s explanation of the miracle but before he proceeds to the content of his sermon. I understand why they did this, because it would have been an extra long reading, but I think we’d be remiss to just skip over it. So, picking up at verse 22, Peter continues:

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.For David says concerning him,
`I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
moreover my flesh will dwell in hope.
For thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades,
nor let thy Holy One see corruption.
Thou hast made known to me the ways of life;
thou wilt make me full of gladness with thy presence.’
Brethren, I may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this which you see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens; but he himself says, `The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I make thy enemies a stool for thy feet.’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

And what came of this brief sermon which the crowd miraculously heard in their own languages? We are told that over three thousand were immediately baptized and that those new converts devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.

I bring all this up, because I worry sometimes that we might have a misguided understanding of the action of the Holy Spirit. We might think of the Spirit as the provider of what increasingly folks these days refer to as “vibes.” We might think of him as a force rather than as a person and as merely an affective stirring of one’s soul rather than as the one who prepares us for and then provides us with wisdom and knowledge leading to a saving faith. But the church has always held and scripture has always supported the latter proposition rather than the former. It’s worth noting that while the New Testament seems to talk about two different sorts of activities we might call “speaking in tongues”–both the clear communication of the Gospel we see in Acts and a more ecstatic sort of experience called “glossolalia” practiced in some of Paul’s churches–the former is the first and I’d argue normative thing, and the latter is carefully regulated by the Apostle, lest the “vibes” get in the way of edification and sound doctrine. We’ll leave discussion of whether this latter experience still happens in some times and places today for another time–that is a complicated question, I don’t know precisely what I think about it myself, and it’s probably not as relevant to most of you as the general point, which is that the “m.o.” of the Spirit, while he absolutely comforts and encourages us, is typically less extreme and ecstatic and more in the realm of the gentle confirmation of the deposit of faith into which we’ve been brought.

I believe all this is really important, though, because sometimes we might be tempted to put the cart of “religious experience” before the horse of simple faithfulness and the acquisition of foundational Christian knowledge. There is a person very dear to me whom I often think about with some concern along these lines.(She is not a member of this parish, but I’ll still avoid any identifying details, because who knows who might be watching the livestream!) I hasten to add that she is a faithful, practicing Christian; I’m not worried about her immortal soul, just her continued growth as a believer. She’s very aesthetically inclined, and while I worry sometimes that she might have made art and idol, she reads a great deal of material that are good in themselves–particularly, poetry and prose pertaining to the more mystical tradition within Christianity. I don’t consider myself a mystic of any description, though I do value the contributions of that stream of Christian practice. There is one important caveat, however, a caveat I’ve shared with this person, though I’m not sure I did so in a way the Holy Spirit might have made as clear as he did Peter’s Pentecost sermon. That caveat is as follows– The mystics have often shared experiences and ideas which might challenge our ordinary understanding of Christianity, sometimes even creeping up to the edge of heterodoxy. They have earned the right to do so, because they’ve spent decades in intense ascetical practice within monastic communities (even those who live as solitaries do so after years in community and return to those communities for prayer and Mass). Those of us who have not done so (and I am among that number) must be extremely careful about how we integrate those insights into our own spiritual lives. When in doubt, it’s safer to just say one’s prayers and read one’s bible and maybe supplement that with a good middle-of-the-road devotional or work of theology.

There is nothing in the world wrong with being an ordinary faithful, prayerful Christian, because that seems to be what the Holy Spirit effected on the first Pentecost. Yes, no doubt there was the miracle mediated by Peter and the eleven. But perhaps the greater miracle was the three thousand baptized that day, and who knows how many hundreds of thousands whose lives they touched afterward, in their simple faithfulness in devoting themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I’ve been asked by more than one person what I think a new pope means for Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue. One remains hopeful, particularly as we ever pray for God to heal our unhappy divisions. That said, I have no idea what the future holds on the ecumenical front. I don’t know whether those barriers to visible unity between all Christians will continue to obscure the invisible unity we all hold as baptized daughters and sons of God this side of eternity or not. I do know that on the other side, those dividing walls will be forever demolished, and if we’re trying to reflect a bit of that perfect world, we’ll do our level best to realize Christ’s final prayer.

You see, the situation in which we find ourselves seems so unhappily in contradiction to Christ’s last prayer, his final request before his suffering and death:

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one.

I would humbly suggest that Christ’s prayer went beyond sentiment. That the unity, the one-ness, to which we as the body of Christ are called, is not about some vague, half-hearted acknowledgement of each other’s existence. You’ve heard that hand-waving excuse from people, you’ve said it yourself, and you’ve probably heard me say something like it: “Well, different strokes for different folks, we’re all praying to the same God, and all that.” I’ve increasingly come to believe that this is an excuse. We are excusing ourselves from what is a horrible sin perpetrated through the centuries: the breaking of Christ’s body.

And the really sad thing is not that we happen to go to different buildings on a Sunday morning. The really sad thing is that our divisions impair our witness:

As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

Church unity is not an end in itself, but a means by which others are brought into the fold. In a world of political and cultural division, the unity of Christ’s Church could be a powerful sign of the Gospel’s reconciling power. We’ve done pretty well at welcoming people of other Christian backgrounds into our parish, people who are curious about the way Episcopalians practice the faith. This is a good thing. But how many once totally uninterested people have come and said, let me check out this Christianity thing? Some, but not as many, and I think that part of the reason is because divisions in the church are a scandal. The Gospel is compelling, but if we’re not living it, nobody will know that it is.

All of this can seem awfully discouraging. There appears to be little for us to do individually, as real, tangible church unity is a matter discussed at higher levels than ours, among popes and bishops and officials of various Christian bodies. The terms of such conversations revolve around weighty debates about what is essential to Christianity and what is not, issues which sometimes seem intractable.

Even so, there is one thing we can do, and which I myself need to do as difficult as it sometimes is. We need a change of heart. We can say “we’re all in the same business” a thousand times without really believing it. I can state my own appreciation of the work of other churches until I’m out of breath, while still secretly, subconsciously seeing those other churches as “the competition”. We can in one moment give lip service to ecumenism, and in the next moment be snide about how weird and out of touch those other Christians seem to be.

But Christ’s prayer for unity was not about being politique or delicate with those with whom we think we have so little in common. Christ’s prayer for unity has its basis in genuine love:

The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Through our love of Jesus we come to love one another, even those whose religion seems to us strange or over-the-top. While none of us is in a position to effect the institutional unity of the church, we all have a part to play in bringing about its unity in love. Ultimately, that sort of unity is a necessary precursor to the other. Unless we truly love our brothers and sisters, unless we have that invisible bond of unity, visible unity can never exist. Far from being a matter for only the highest levels of church leadership, church unity must begin with each of us, setting aside our discomfort, and “living in love as Christ loved us.” This is easier said than done, but it is our charge. May we be given the charity to accomplish it.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

As a consequence of both having poor eyesight and being a rather clumsy person, I’ve never much enjoyed the dark. I dislike that feeling of waking up in the middle of the night and stumbling around to find my glasses, perhaps tripping over a cat or the shoes I left in the wrong place or whatever. I’m lucky to live in the developed world in the twenty-first century where electric lighting is ubiquitous.

In the ancient world, and for that matter in the modern world until about a century ago, the world would have literally been a much darker place.

Imagine, then, how surprising the imagery in this morning’s reading from Revelation would have been to people living in a literally much darker world:

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut by day–and there shall be no night there … And night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.

Light and dark imagery is seen throughout scripture, and I suspect it would have been more striking to these ancient people for whom the dark was a very dangerous reality. Bandits and predators struck in the dark. At nightfall you’d lock the gates to the city, and you’d probably stay in your house unless you were looking to get into some mischief.

And as dangerous as the literal darkness would have been, the metaphorical darkness in which the early church operated was a necessary evil. The church was being persecuted, and the best way to avoid death was to act like the bandits- move in secret, don’t get found out, worship God in locked rooms and catacombs.

How heartening, then, was this message of daylight! No longer would Christians need to scurry about in the dark, hiding from their torch-bearing persecutors. Finally, the true light which came to enlighten humanity could shine for all the world to see! The glory of God and of the Lamb would shine into every corner, bringing the righteous into a new and everlasting day and showing the designs of the wicked to be but vanity.

And now for the really interesting question, the question which makes the book of Revelation such a difficult text: Has this taken place? Are we, God’s faithful people, enjoying the light or is it an as-yet dim but growing hope.

I think it’s both. On the one hand, the majority of Christians can now be pretty open about their religion. Since Constantine, the Church has enjoyed a privileged place in Western society, even if it no longer has the authority it once had in the day-to-day lives of adherents and the larger culture. The Church continues to grow in foreign lands, many of which had until fairly recently seen the church persecuted just like in the bad old days of the Roman Empire. Things are by no means perfect, but they’ve getten better, at least in some parts of the world.

But we’ve not yet reached that perfect state of light. Sin and death are still with us. The vision of Revelation is not just about Christians escaping outright persecution (though that was the prevailing issue when the book was written). It’s also about all things being made subject to the reign of Christ. We’ve not yet seen “the kings of the earth bringing their glory into [the city of God].” It may have seemed like that for about a millennium, between Constantine and the Reformation, but the story was and remains a great deal more complex than that.

So, as much progress as has been made over the last two-thousand years, there is still darkness. There are still corners into which the saving light of God has not shone. The nations have not been fully healed. Not all have the name of the lamb inscribed on their foreheads and in their hearts.

So, the image of the City of God, the New Jerusalem, is still a hope. It is a hope for which we’ve been given a foretaste in the Church and Her Sacraments, but all is not yet accomplished.

And so we pray for the Kingdom, in the sure and certain hope that it is our birthright in Baptism. We don’t just wait around waiting for “pie in the sky when we die, by and by”, because the vision of the Holy City is a vision of the coming reality of this world, too. Rather, we light a candle here and there, causing the gloom to take flight, and one day, perhaps when we least expect it, the world will be so full of the light of Grace that the darkness will have no bastion remaining, and all things everywhere will be transformed into just what God intends for them.

+In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.